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Agriculture gets little support as govt agencies falter

Poor capacity utilisation irks minister

UNB, Dhaka
Agriculture alone contributes 25 per cent to the country's GDP, but gets little support from the government in terms of marketing and storage and timely supply of inputs, including quality seeds and fertilisers.
Farmers even do not get counselling services from 10 government agencies meant for agricultural promotion, despite having huge manpower and infrastructures.
However, zonal and district level officials of these government agencies do not miss any opportunity to dish out figures to demonstrate the extent of their services to the farmers.
Even Agriculture Minister MK Anwar seemed at a loss to see the jugglery of figures presented to him during a recent visit to Comilla regional office of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI).
"I can't really understand what you say. Your projections are not clear to me at all," blurted out the apparently annoyed minister after listening to a two-hour presentation by the agriculture-related officials.
He also differed with some of the figures, including the statistics on ground water arsenic level in some upazilas of Comilla.
Anwar resented the trend of government officials to highlight their problems first and advised them to optimise their output by efficient use of existing resources.
"Don't always cry for what you don't have. Shortage of money, equipment and manpower will be there. You've to work with whatever you have," he said, asking the field-level officials to prove their efficiency, working with limited resources.
The minister was also annoyed to hear that Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) only meets 5 per cent of the country's seed requirement and asked why it could not make it 100 per cent. "Why are you not cultivating paddy seeds on BRRI lands?"
Bangladesh Jute Research Institute possesses 25 acres of land in Comilla alone, he said and regretted that jute seeds were still imported from India.
Anwar noted that BADC does not utilise even 10 per cent of its capacity regarding seed supply.
"I'm disappointed by your performance," he told the officials of agriculture promotional agencies, including agriculture extension, research, irrigation, marketing and soil health.
"I also don't understand what's going on in the irrigation front," he said, rejecting the arsenic statistics furnished by the BADC's irrigation department. "You've a laboratory, even then you can't tell the exact level of arsenic in ground water."
He was also unhappy to hear that the soil testing laboratory in Comilla gave Tk 26,000 only to the government exchequer as charges realised for testing soil samples. "You should also tell how many lakhs of taka you spent from the exchequer."
"Some 40,000 people are working under the agriculture ministry down to the union council level. You've infrastructures and networks," the minister said, underscoring emotional involvement and a sense of accountability to make agriculture development a social movement.
Later, inaugurating a seed fair at the local town hall ground, Anwar appreciated the private sector's success in evolving and marketing
improved varieties of seeds.
The minister appreciated the Brac's initiative to export vegetables collected from local growers at fair prices.
Vegetable Export Centre of Brac at Chandina of Comilla exports 2 tons of fresh vegetable daily on an average. About 240 tons of long bean, 145 tons of capsicum, 125 tons of French bean and 112 tons of bitter gourd were exported from the centre in 2003.
Contracted growers told the minister that they were happy with the prices and the assured prices for their supplies to the export centre.
At the BADC horticulture centre at Sayedpur of Comilla, farmers complained of high prices of chemical fertilisers. The minister said the government is responsible only for urea, while other fertilisers and chemicals are handled by the private sector.
Responding to the demands for storage facilities, Anwar said: "The government has nothing to do in this area. Like Brac, other NGOs and private sector can come up in the business."